If you needed more proof of the weight behind social media, this is it.
Rage Against the Machine have just had their first UK Number 1. They got it thanks to an extraordinary Facebook campaign, beating X-Factor winner Joe McElderry.
The successful single, Killing in the Name, was released over 15 years ago. RATM spent nothing on marketing and yet they made it to Christmas No.1. Whatever your opinions of Rage Against the Machine, Simon Cowell, Facebook or Joe Mcelderry, this has been a great show of social media strength.
In taking the title for 2009, Killing In The Name also sets two new landmarks, becoming the UK’s first download-only Christmas number one and notching up the biggest one-week download sales total in British chart history.
A week ago X-Factor Winner Joe McElderry appeared to be a Shoo in for Christmas No.1. Every year, for four years, the Winner of X-Factor has been number one at Christmas. But this year Jon and Tracy Morter , of Essex, who decided to set up a protest campaign on Facebook and promote Rage Against the Machine as a possible contender.

December 16, 2009

This country has a big problem, and this catastrophic failure is only a symptom. The future of the republic is at stake. Count on the bloodsuckers and our cynical, sociopathic corporate rulers to ride its cooling carcass on a chute straight to Hell.
Dean says kill the Senate health bill: report | Raw Story

WASHINGTON -- Following the jettisoning of both the public option and the Medicare buy-in provision, one of the nation's leading progressive voices on health care reportedly said Tuesday that the Senate bill is no longer worth supporting.
"This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate," former Gov. Howard Dean told political reporter Bob Kinzel of Vermont Public Radio. Kinzel relayed the news to The Plum Line's Greg Sargent, and the full VPR interview will air at 5:50 pm today.
"Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill," he said.

We are at a moment where it's possible to see the utter and complete failure of the war model as applied to what happened to America on 9/11. Other countries have eliminated serious terrorist threats, most recently Italy and Germany in the 1970s, with rough but relatively sane policing, as India is hoping Pakistan will do now. Only the United States thought a ragtag band of fanatics was deserving of the ultimate honor (in their eyes): a declaration, of sorts, of war.
Republicans, at least, are being consistent, raging against trials for KSM and friends, demanding the president send every soldier requested by McChrystal. It's the Democrats, as feckless as they were during the 2002 Senate "debate" on Iraq, who are role-playing. Look what happened when John Kerry suggested, during the 2004 campaign, that the war model was misguided. What happened? He shut up about it.
Conspiracy theorists will suggest, based on the Senate report, that letting bin Laden walk was a deliberate choice to prolong the war. All that is really possible to know now is that we're in Afghanistan for a while, in deep, and bin Laden isn't. Well done, gents. Well played.